Say hello to Google's G1 (updated)

Finally: the Android-running G1 phone is let loose. It's set to be the first commercial application of Google's Android phone operating system - the one built by Andy Rubin and friends (makers of the Danger Sidekick, popular in the US and anonymous in Britain).

Richard Wray, our telecoms editor, is in New York for the launch - where Larry Page and Sergey Brin turned up on rollerskates (no joke) - and he should have some more information from on the ground soon. In the meantime, however, the rest of us are poring over the coverage from the gadgetblogs and commentators to try and get a feel for things.

What to say? The pictures suggest it looks pretty much like any HTC smartphone of recent years, with a large screen, smattering of buttons on the front and a slide-out Qwerty keypad. For American consumers, at least, it's being heavily subsidised - and still costs $179. Plenty of people have told me to dampen down expectations since, after all, it's only the first version (I hope that doesn't mean it'll still be in beta in four years).

Charles Arthur adds: if you want a quick comparison chart of the two, then have a look at Technologier's page, which is as good a first-pass weighing up as you'll see until we do it. The quick reaction: G1 has better phone, choice of keyboard (touch/key), is cheaper, weighs more, comes optionally in brown (yuk), and has perhaps a significantly shorter standby (though these things are always fibs to some extent.)

But here may be the killer difference: the G1 has cut and paste. Oh noes!

Update: Joe Wilcox, in God phone meets the devil, says that "The phone offers single sign-on to Google's plethora of online services, including Calendar, Contacts, Gmail, Google Talk, Maps Street View and YouTube. Suddenly, the hodgepodge plethora of Google applications and services have a single point of connection and synchronization. If this mechanism works, and well, the G1 and other Android-based phones will be powerful data and telephony devices out of the box."

And he adds: "As I've blogged before, sync is the killer application for the connected world. Last year I warned: "If Google gets synchronization right before Microsoft, it's game over." Ditto to Apple. Google's sync magic requires no PC." Apple, feel warned.